


yesterdays & tomorrows

by hugducks



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Immortal Magnus Bane, Immortal Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Magnus Bane Needs A Hug, Mortal Alec Lightwood, Moving On, Non-graphic character death, it's sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:35:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24041422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hugducks/pseuds/hugducks
Summary: He's loved before, but never like this.He's always had something to lose, but never this much.Magnus knows he's in love with a mortal. He knows that it will end one day, as almost everything in his immortal life will.Snapshots of a warlock grieving for his future.
Relationships: Jem Carstairs/Tessa Gray, Magnus Bane & Max Lightwood-Bane, Magnus Bane & Tessa Gray, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Max Lightwood-Bane & Rafael Lightwood-Bane
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	yesterdays & tomorrows

Twelve years after they get married Magnus is frantically calling Tessa. 

She knew it was coming. She just didn’t know when.

Within two days they’ve stolen away to a secluded island, husbands under the pretense of a magical emergency.

The warlocks don’t discourage the idea.

Magnus knows it’s irrational. A single moment, a _reminder_. His three boys, laughing in the kitchen, piling misshapen pancakes atop a plate until–

They all came crashing down. 

(Magnus saw his world go down with the stack. He magicked them back up, good as new, but it wasn’t the same.)

∂

The warlocks set up a code. One message is all it takes for them to Portal over, ready to share tight hugs and bittersweet smiles. They talk about it to others, hiding their winces at the obvious outcomes, but there’s a camaraderie the two share. No one else could understand.

There’s nothing like grieving for the future you know is going to pass.

Twenty-one years after the day Magnus first met Alec, the latter grows his first white hair.

The warlocks spend a week in the Himalayas that summer. 

∂

It’s at Rafael’s wedding when he notices how quickly time has flown by. He consols himself, telling himself that every parent thinks the same. Wishes for when their child was young and they had years and years ahead of them.

He remembers his own wedding, in a hall with a few less windows. The girl is lovely, and Magnus realizes just how many people in the room he’s seen grow up before his very eyes. 

It’s another picture slipped into another frame. Magnus doesn’t comment on how two of the faces stay the same. 

They move out of the old apartment within the week.

∂

Waking up next to his husband never gets old. It slows, over the years, from youthful passion to warmer smiles, but those piercing blue eyes never fail to sweep him right back off his feet.

He loves the way Alec’s eyes crinkle when he smiles, loves the deep baritone of his voice, but his fingers seem to stutter when he brushes over a new wrinkle on Alec’s cheek.

He knows he’ll never have ones to match. He tries not to dwell on that too much. (He fails. Miserably.)

∂

Magnus can’t tell why exactly he’s crying when he holds his grandson for the first time. (His mascara runs when he first hears the news. Alec is adept at fixing his makeup after all these years together.)

Max is smiling widely, blue hair a messy mop. He’s been growing it out, but wisely decided that it was a bad idea with a baby.

Magnus knows his son doesn’t fully understand the curse of their kind. He sees the sadness seep in, when Max watches his brother’s family, but he grew up too entwined with the shadowhunters to be prepared.

He knows it’s not fair to wait for the ball to drop.

But there’s no other way to prepare the boy.

Magnus lets Max be just an uncle for just a little longer.

He meets Tessa a year later, time already slipping through his fingers. 

They stay away for three days.

∂

Jem goes first. 

When the time comes for Alec, Magnus knows he isn’t ready.

He begs and pleads to any angel who may care (not demons, because he knows they’ll answer), and gets nothing.

Alec always wanted to go down fighting. _A Shadowhunter’s death_ , he’d say.

A little boy lives, and Magnus feels like his world is ending.

They don’t get a choice in the funeral. 

(Max doesn’t get it yet. He won’t understand until his brother’s, niece’s, great-grand nephew’s funerals come to pass. Magnus will have moved on by then, but not Max. He’s too entrenched in mortality to let go.)

∂

Half the shadow world comes to pay their respects.

Magnus and Tessa steal away to the ends of the world for a year. 

They come back, hearts still heavy. 

They know there’s still more to pass.

∂

(Magnus doesn’t know if he’ll ever love again. He wonders how long he’d have to stay away from New York before it’s no longer the city he knew with Alexander. He can’t think of a world without him.)

(But he must.)

**Author's Note:**

> This makes me sad but also idk. I always felt like Alec wouldn't be suited to immortality, seeing as he was raised knowing that he would pretty much give his life for others. I think Magnus would get that, grieve that, and try to move on. And given what we've seen, Tessa would honestly be the only other person to get it.  
> There's,,,,,, so much analysis that I wanna do here I fuckin love character analysis.  
> I hope everyone's safe and healthy rn <3


End file.
